AT RANDOM. TRENDSPOTTING.

Although sexy, tube tops may not suit all shapes

July 21, 2004|By Heidi Stevens, Tribune staff reporter.

Life's Great Questions, summer 2004 version: Who will the GOP field to take on U.S. Senate hopeful Barack Obama? Will the Cubs be able to inch their way back into first place? And are tube tops a good look?

Come to think of it, that last question could be asked just about every summer (heck, so could the second one). But this season's tube tops have a bit of a twist.

Walk around any festival, concert, shopping mall or neighborhood this summer and you're bound to see a rash of smock-style tube tops -- tight across the chest with an A-line flare to the waist or slightly below. I've seen them in terrycloth, cotton twill and cotton knit. I've seen them in solid colors of every hue, as well as plaids, stripes and floral prints.

And I've seen them look really, really bad. On me.

I've tried on several varieties, and each time I'm left pondering the same question: "Do I want people to think I'm pregnant?" Being that I'm not pregnant, I always come up with the same answer, which is: "No."

As a follow-up, I'm always left with the age-old, "Is it just me?"

I've seen women walking around in these things looking stylish, summery and not necessarily pregnant. Does it just take a very specific body type to pull off this look? Am I just not hip enough to participate in this trend?

I decided to go straight to the experts with my quandary.

Suze Yalof Schwartz, Glamour magazine's executive fashion editor at large, came to my rescue. If anyone knows fashion do's and don't's, it's Glamour, which ends each monthly issue with an entire page of them and occasionally devotes several pages to the feature.

"That top right now is a do," Schwartz informed me.

For . . .

"They actually look really good on everyone," she answers. "They show off your shoulders, which is the skinniest part of a woman, and hide your stomach, which is the largest part."

"It's both sexy and concealing," she continues. "You feel like you're wearing a sexy top, but you can hide a multitude of sins."

"Carb fashion," she called them. I'm lovin' it.

Schwartz says the tops look best with jeans ("either white or blue") or other long pants.

"If you pair it with a skirt, it just looks off," she says. "You could be borderline between a Glamour do and a Glamour don't."

I imagine the skirt effect is somewhat like a Christmas tree, with layers that branch out wider and wider as they get closer to the ground.

But with the right bottoms, these tops are a hot commodity.

"The tank top of last year is this year's tube," Schwartz says. "The popularity is overwhelming. A must-have."

Which means you can find them everywhere, and at every price range, starting around $19 and topping out at around $90. But act quickly, because Schwartz warns the tops might flame out after another summer.

"I think you'll see them next summer, but the summer after that they'll be in the same place as that pashmina," she warns.